france

Jay H. Alanski: The Price Of Love (1988)

2022/06/07

Looking back, there’s something very telling in the first video clip I embedded here which you can watch below. In it we see one Jay Alanski participating in Thierry Ardisson’s popular “Le Blind Test” – a show where celebrities and/or musicians are presented with excerpts from records, quizzed whether they can guess what’s playing. What’s…
Chagrin D’Amour: Chagrin D’Amour (1982)

2018/07/24

Who knows what would have happened in France if New Yorker Valli Timbert hadn’t met filmmaker Philippe Bourgoin, at some Chelsea Hotel, in the late ‘70s? Philippe, not pictured on the cover of Chagrin D’Amour’s self-titled debut, was the French artiste who had fallen in love with rap early on in 1979. Then, via The…
Regrets: Agathe (1985)

2017/08/25

Entirely slept-on, to the point that it still boggles my mind how with all the recent reissues and rediscoveries of artists like Telex, Alec Mansion, Li Garattoni, and Linda DiFranco – artists who skirted the line of Balearic, electro-pop, post-disco, and boogie – there hasn’t been room for someone to be woke enough to Montpellier’s…
Alain Chamfort: Amour, Année Zéro

2017/08/02

I almost hate myself for sharing this. It’s like eating a slice of sublime dark chocolate cake, followed by a full spread of some fine charcuterie, chased with some sumptuous Riesling. Obviously, it’s too rich and not entirely good for you…but man is it refined and tasty when you’re devouring it. That’s exactly the…
Pierre Barouh: Le Pollen (1982)

2017/02/17

News travels so quickly now that it’s hard to keep up with the cycles of life. Word of Pierre Barouh’s passing, at the end of December 2016, didn’t come recently to me, it came to me this week. It came when I discovered them while researching this thought in my head – of sharing his work at FOND/SOUND.…
Alan Stivell: Brezhoneg Raok (1973)

2014/12/06

Alan Stivell and bombard. Finishing off what he hinted at in his previous album, yesterday’s A L’Olympia, Alan decided to commit to tape his idea of a brand new European music. Chamins de Terre, translates to Songs of the Earth, tried to combine everything from his background. His background in Celtic roots music, new influences…
Alan Stivell: Tri Martolod (1972)

2014/12/05

Alan Stivell – 1972 When we last left off Alan Stivell he was breathing new life into a genre threatened to be left in the dustbin of musical history. Breton folk music, and modern Celtic music as a whole experienced a revival of sorts due to his groundbreaking Renaissance de la Harpe Celtique. One year…
Alan Stivell: Gaeltacht (1971)

2014/11/07

Alan Stivell – 1971 Let’s blur the line of history even further. What does French-born musician Alan Stivell (real name Alan Cochevelou) have in any way, shape, or form to do with English neo-folk? Could you believe this same man created the first strains of Celtic rock. The music of all the Gaelic traditions owe…